Garden Report:

.: 14:49 :.

I have been mostly off this weekend. John has been the primary parent in charge of Logan, and I have been, well, disconnected is the best description I can come up with. Like someone unplugged or maybe just rerouted the cord from my brain to everything else.

I've got my share of Logan's cold. If it keeps up tomorrow then I'll be calling the doctor myself. Being on the asthma medicine seems to help cut down on the quickness and severity of colds settling in my chest, but this one is making its way there slowly but surely. I took some of Logan's cough syrup last night (bad I know) and was able to go to sleep without coughing. I hadn't been coughing a lot before bed, but my chest was feeling heavier and heavier, and I recognized the feeling as one that would have me coughing as soon as I was horizontal.

So I've been knitting, and stareing blankly at the computer screen. I wish I felt better so I could enjoy the time off. Logan, still on all medications, is feeling better enough that she's bouncing from one thing to the next very happily with John. She's climbed the wood pile, rested in the garden beds (keeping the worms company), eaten grass because the goats like it so she does too, chased down the cat ("I bring she back to you.") and played everywhere. You folks know the drill I'm sure. We've got Garlic and Sweet Peas and Snow Peas to plant, plus a few old saved potatoes. I'll probably take the things for them outside in a little bit. Right now John and Logan are out roasting coffee with a local Coffee List person.

Between John and Logan they've gotten all seven of our finished raised beds filled with compost and chicken manure. Plus one little bed for Logan to plant as she likes in. Volunteer sweet peas from last year are already up, so I hope our seeds will do okay. And I'm really looking foreword to those flowers.

Oh, yeah, my bees are out and around and bringing back loads of pollen. The daffodils are blooming, it's a new season.

Michael

.: 12:41 :.

Logan and I knew Michael and Toby mainly at While Away. While many other people talked about seeing them out walking, I'm not sure we ever encountered them except at While Away. They were constant companions. As far as Logan was concerned Toby was the important member of the team. But he always came in with Michael. Toby is cheerful, energetic, clever, and about seven inches tall, a little dust mop of a dog. Michael was 46, I think, when he died at the beginning of this month. We went to A Celebration of His Life last night.

I knew Michael wasn't healthy before I even knew him. While Away is a small book store, and it's easy to hear the people at the next table talking. So I'd heard Michael talk about having had brain surgery and not being supposed to live to see age 30. I didn't know how old he was, but I'd never have guessed as young as 46. Michael was a character. He was shy about making his opinion known if he cared about something. I listened to him talking about the improper use of the word "got" one day. "Got Milk?" was not correct. I believe him. Word usage isn't one of my focuses at the moment, but I'm familiar with wanting words to be used correctly, and being annoyed when they aren't. Someone at the Celebration also said he used to take objection to a person being "done" with something. One is finished, not done; a cake is done.

Toby was the one dog granted regular amnesty from While Away's unfortunate need to keep dogs out because they serve food. (Dogs used to all be welcome in While Away until the health department took note.) Toby was a companion dog, who had an official letter giving him permission to go places other dogs couldn't. His job, I suspect, was to get Michael talking with people who he might not have on his own. Toby was good at his job. He was very careful last night to go from person to person, visit each one. He even responded appropriately when Logan asked him to do "Pattycake" for her in exchange for a biscuit. (about ten times in succession.) In the past while he'd do it on command, he never seemed to realize Logan was talking to him, he'd wait for Michael to say the word.

Michael nearly lost his house because he chose to pay for his medications instead of his mortgage last fall. What a choice. Stay alive, or have a place to live! He never mentioned the problems with paying his mortgage when I was within hearing. I think he was embarrassed and didn't want to make a fuss. I'm very glad he told Karen at While Away, who was able to do something to help. Michael was a fixture at While Away, part of the atmosphere that makes it an interesting place to go. I tell people that Logan adds to the atmosphere too, although it's in a different way from Michael. I snagged the quote about the house from a News Review article on Nov 28 2003:
.
Generous gift for a man in need

Michael Buford of Roseburg found himself in a serious bind this fall. Medically disabled, and faced with mounting bills after three brain surgeries, the 45-year old couldn't keep up with his mortgage payments.

But when his friends at While Away Books heard of the looming foreclosure, they stepped up to help. A story in The News-Review followed, and cash began to fill a collection jar at the store.

The fund was kicked over the top when an anonymous donor dropped off an incredible $1,500 and Karen Tolley from the store added another $500 just to make sure.

"I'm flabbergasted," Buford said gratefully when he realized the $6,500 donated would allow him to keep his home.

It was indeed an incredible, generous gift to someone who needed a helping hand

Last night someone at the Celebration mentioned that Michael's medications had cost $4000.00 a month. Yes, Four Thousand Dollars. No wonder he couldn't pay his mortgage when insurance didn't cover all of them. I blanch at medications with a $100 price tag. And I have half way decent insurance at the moment, thanks to John's position at Umpqua Research. For Michael, on disability, having even a few of those medications not covered would have been, quite probably was in fact, a death sentence.

I have odd bits of unfinished business all my own with Michael. He talked about all the things he thought a cookie or scone should have in it once: pecans, maple, oats, chocolate . . . I don't remember all of them right now. I thought how easy it would be to make him some. Then listened as he proceeded to explain that texture was the only thing he could enjoy in his food now, he had no sense of smell or taste left. That explained why he didn't realize the Maple Pecan scones at While Away were so close to what he wanted I guess. He talked about having lost his hat, and wanting one that wasn't just a "beanie". The basic toque style of hat, what I'd probably call a "ski cap" was what he called a beanie. I tried to figure out what I could knit for him that would be acceptable. I hoped he'd live long enough for me to finish my backlog of projects, but he didn't. I hadn't even started designing a hat for him yet. He also wished for gloves to keep his hands warm. Those would be easier to do. But I hadn't started them yet either. He searched for a metal detector to find the surveyor's marker on the corner of his property. We have one. I agreed to bring it in as soon as we could find it. That was at the end of January. He died the first week of February.

Michael was not someone who I would have expected to be friendly and kind to a busy, energetic child, but he was. He listened to Logan when she asked him questions about Toby. He complemented me on reading to her at While Away, despite having to listen to an untold number of children's books being read. (Who ever is in While Away gets to hear the books Logan chooses to have read to her when we are there, but they haven't complained, and some even seem to enjoy seeing her excitement of choosing books and listening to them.) He didn't mind sharing the arm covers on his chair with her and Aidan as they pretended they were hats, or coats or something. He was patient, pleasant and nice to talk with. I'm sad that the system that paid for his medications failed him. I suspect he was tired of fighting with them and chose to accept the lack of medication rather than wade in for another battle. I do respect people's right to choose the time of their dying, which Michael did in a way. I respected Michael quite a bit.

Michael left his body to science, which costs money to do evidently. I put the last of the money from a birthday check in to the fish bowl last night. It was only $16, I'd been saving it for yarn, but I couldn't find my check book and this seemed like an appropriate use for it. I'll add more once the check book is tracked down. He left his house to his niece, who I've never met, but who has a child older and a child younger than Miss Logan. With luck, if she does move here to live in the house, I will meet her. I think I will probably knit for her kids, and see if they still need to track down the surveyor's marker at her house.

I found a couple on line articles about Michael on line, which I'll link here in case anyone wants to read more. If the links are broken let me know. I've saved a copy of those pages now and I'll put them up on dreams and bones somewhere if the News Review archives them elsewhere.

Fund Raising for Michael's House
Fundraising succeeded in saving Michael's House
Michael's death
Michael's obituary

Now I'm left with the question of what I can do to make a difference to people for whom the system isn't working. Thanks to the shrubbery in residence in DC, Oregon's health care has had a lot of cuts in the past few years. A lot of people are being failed by the system. I'll have to think about what my part of the solution can be.

It seems ironic to now know that the chair that was a big part of the appeal of While Away for me with a nursing infant was Michael's chair. It is the one "easy chair" in the place. A book store, with tea and coffee, including decaf and non-dairy options (soy, rice or a combo of the two in place of cows milk), snacks available, and tolerant of a newborn, crawler, walker, and now climber. I used to sit in it to nurse Logan, hell, I still do sit in it to nurse her, she's just bigger now. Robyn used to walk her to While Away, down the block from WomonCare's office at that time, while I was volunteering in the office, and she would fall asleep in the sling in his lap in that chair, trapping him until she woke up again. We sit in that chair to read books, me with Logan and sometimes Aidan on my lap, running around, climbing. Logan plays in the chair. It's hard for me to think about it now without missing Michael's presence in the shop.

Logan's Cough Saga

.: 08:21 :.

5:30 AM John gets up. I roll over in to a comfortable position expecting to go back to sleep.
5:31 AM Small Cat comes to keep me company and settles down between my nose and arm (not that there was more than an inch of space there). I flip my head to the other direction.
5:32 AM Logan realizes cat is between her and me. She gets up and inserts herself between me and the small cat.
5:33 AM Small cat, unhappy with this situation moves to settle in on the back of my neck and head. Not as comfortable as I was, but this still works. Time to sleep.
5:34: AM Logan somehow morphs from a child in to one of those cartoon fist and boot wheels. She sets up a continuous stretch of kicking, nudging, bumping and general motion.
5:55 AM Logan announces She's getting up and is going to turn on Papa's light. Light is unplugged. Logan doesn't accept this as a reason it won't turn on. After a few minutes of discussion, she calls Papa to tell him his light is broken, but agrees to get up with him when he comes up stairs. I go back to sleep. At last.

Okay, that part wasn't the cough saga. But I had to write it out before I forgot. I slept again until 7:15, in continuous REM sleep I think. Making up for Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday nights short sleep. So here's the rest of the story.

Monday: Logan coughing a lot. We talked to Wilma who asked if it was allergies. No, just phase two of a cold in our house. We all often end up with that same cough. Monday night Logan coughed a lot. We'd already gone back to our "during a cold" asthma medicine regime, and added in bedtime and middle of the night cough syrup too. Logan slept propped up, coughing. John and I listened and wished we were sleeping. So we all slept, some, and listened to Logan cough some.

Tuesday, Logan coughing a lot. She wasn't particularly interested in food, but she still had 20 times as much energy as a sick child is supposed to. Tuesday night she coughed even more, and the cough medicine didn't seem to help. I dug out our room humidifier and cleaned it (at 2:30 AM) and got it running. It still smelled of mildew, but seemed to help some, in addition to all the other meds and remedies we'd tried.

Wednesday: called the Asthma and Allergy doctor's office, who decided we should go in to have Logan's lungs listened to at 4. So we trekked to Eugene. While there I bought two new humidifiers (with filters) and a fan, and I don't remember what else at Target. Robyn and Logan stayed in the car reading, so I was able to think, in a sleep deprived state, while shopping. The doctor looked at Logan bouncing around the room and commented that she didn't' look to sick. Then she listened to Logan's lungs, bad. And she looked in Logan's ears. Also bad. So, she has Asthma in the Red Zone (compared to yellow or green zone), which will go back to the other zones as she recovers, and Bronchitis, and an ear infection. So we came home with a change in asthma meds, plus mega antibiotics. And she slept three hours in the evening. Then she woke up coughing at 10, and coughed for five hours. Despite all meds.

Whoops, now Andrea and Aidan are her to eat oatmeal so we can all go to minimusicians. So I'll finish quick.

Thursday, we continued meds and called the doctor's office to ask what else we could do to prevent even more lost sleep. Thanks to the original meds, Logan took a 4 hour nap. Phew. At the end of the day the unsympathetic nurse (they really need to rest you know) called in some heavy duty cough medicine to the pharmacy. We all went to bed between 8 and 9, and Logan slept until the time at the beginning of this post. Five thirty whatever.

The doctors office says it may take weeks for her lungs to heal back to where they should be - so we'll be doing the heavy duty asthma medicine for a while, but with luck we'll be sleeping too. And I'm beginning to learn about asthma. Whoopee.

What we did yesterday:

.: 21:15 :.

What we did yesterday (Sunday):

It wasn't even a full days work, but I went out this morning and took pictures, in the rain, while trying to shift laundry from one place to another. So that I'd have one to show of my concrete muffins, and whatever all else turned out decently. There were a few decent ones, so here they are.





The mulch path is new. The rocks and wood bordering grass and plants on the left are new. I hauled these rocks by wheelbarrow from the garden over to the house.





There you can see the rest of the wheel barrow rocks, and the dead grass in the center where the concrete muffins were.





I could get a closer up picture of them, but I think this one shows. John and I rolled them, down hill at least, from the dead grass to their current positions as yard borders. Eventually this little yard will be a flower garden with paths in it, and maybe a place for a table and chair. And birdfeeders, I just bought 40 lbs of wild bird seed, and a third feeder today. The birds haven't found my thistle feeder yet, but the are emptying the other one every day that's not pouring rain. Bird feeder pictures some other day.